This invention relates to a method for treating fabrics or garments to create a nonuniform surface finish effect, and a composition useful in same. More particularly, this invention relates to a method of treating fabrics or garments with a certain pigment-containing foam composition, which method results in a nonuniformly colored fabric or garment. The method avoids the use of dyes and results in a fabric or garment having a soft, worn, abraded, or faded appearance, without actual wear or abrasion of those fabrics or garments.
There has arisen in recent years an industry, related to the laundering industry, consisting of methods for imparting a soft, worn, faded nonuniform look to new clothes, in particular, denim jeans. Consumers will pay a significant premium for clothes having a nonuniform surface, with a soft or worn look, and accordingly, a number of methods have been developed by prior workers for treating new garments and fabrics to cause them to have the desired appearance.
A known method for obtaining nonuniformly colored, soft, worn looking fabrics or garments is extract dyeing. In this method, the fabric or garment is dyed to a low depth and then washed or treated to extract unbound dyestuff from the fabric or garment surfaces, thereby resulting in a nonuniform, worn-looking coloration. In this method, however, all fabric surfaces must be treated, which means that when entire garments are treated, they must be dyed both inside and out. Additionally, the dyeing method has the disadvantage of requiring careful temperature control during the dyeing process.
Another method employed for obtaining soft, non-uniformly colored, worn-looking clothes is that wherein large pumice stones, i.e., stones 2 to 4 inches or more in diameter, are used in the washing machine. These large stones circulate with colored garments during the wash cycle and cause the garments to abrade and soften, removing some of the color. There are major problems with this method, however, among them being that the stones break, they collide with the washing cylinder during agitation and cause damage thereto, and, most importantly, they cause damage to the garments themselves. The latter is caused, it is believed, when pumice stones strike one another or strike the washing cylinder and a garment or portion thereof is caught in between. This procedure wears and abrades the garments treated, weakening them, shortening their life-expectancy. This also creates holes in the garments and makes them unsuitable for sale. The pumice stones have also been known to break and form sharp edges and points and these also cause damage to the garments and the washing machine. Still another disadvantage of the pumice stone method is that it is time consuming and labor consuming to remove the stones from the wash cylinder after each cycle and it is inconvenient, if not dangerous, to workers handling the sharp stones. Yet another disadvantage of stone washing methods employing pumice stones is that the stones themselves or fragments thereof actually find their way into the pockets of the garments being washed and they must be removed in a time consuming and labor intensive operation.
In an attempt to cut down the wear and tear on the garments during washing with pumice stones, workers developed another unsatisfactory method of treating fabrics or garments to achieve a soft, worn, nonuniform appearance. This method is a modified pumice stone method, with the added factor that prior to use, the pumice stones are soaked in sodium hypochloride or other bleaching agent. The presoaked pumice stones are then used during the wash cycle with colored garments and result in garments having the desired worn, soft, nonuniform coloration appearance with much less wear and tear on the garment. Unfortunately, this method has the disadvantage that during the washing process, the bleach reacts with the pumice, resulting in a non-water soluble mud-like byproduct. The presence of the mud-like byproduct necessitates the time and cost of repeated rewashings of the treated garments in an attempt to remove the nonsoluble byproduct. The formation of a non-water soluble byproduct also raises environmental concerns related to the difficulties of disposing of such a nonsoluble byproduct.